Olive Garden Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Siesta Key

Let's see...this was so bad I don't even know where to begin! First of all let me just mention that I am a server myself so I typically am pretty understanding when servers make errors but these have to top the cake! We were seated at a wet table, but at least it was clean, it took the waitress 9 minutes to come to our table and take our drink order to which the first thing she does is apologize because she doesn't know how long we've been waiting at the table because she was in the restroom! First off, the one thing you don't tell people that you're about to serve when you are their waitress is that you just came out of the bathroom!

It then took over 16 minutes to get our salad and 2 drinks, which, if they had been busy and it was dinner rush I would understand, but being that this was at 8:30 at night on a Sunday night and the majority of the restaurant had left I wouldn't think I would have had to wait that long for drinks.

After getting our salad and drinks our food was brought out to us prior to our salad plates being cleared and with a waitress who couldn't carry the tray jack so had to ask someone else to grab the tray jack for her and proceeded to say in front of us that she was about to drop a plate she was holding if someone else didn't take the tray from her and put it on the tray jack for her - Miss, this would be your fault as why you would try to carry out the tray and a hot plate in the other hand to begin with I ha no idea! Another big No-No in the business... Don't carry more than you can handle.

And lastly while we were still eating our dinner she plopped down into the booth across from us and proceeded to watch us while we were eating and sighed because she was obviously tired and ready to go home because it was almost 9 which was closing time. She got very lucky that she opened her mouth and proceeded to ask other people with me if they had been told that they looked like someone famous before which would have been nice if she just let us finish our dinner instead of asking us questions while we're trying to eat and she's watching us! I say she's lucky because I was about to say to her "I know that your employer does not authorize you sitting down in the dining room and watching customers while they're eating... don't you have a break room you can go to?!"

And I won't go into detail about the one waiter who was huffing and puffing onto the breadsticks while he was carrying a tray to another table!

Agsolutely the worst service I've ever had at Olive Garden, or anywhere else for that matter, in a very long time. Olive Garden Sarasota, you just lost my business. I will now go to Bradenton to eat at the Olive Garden out there instead of the one...

My other and I like to go to Olive Garden closer to where he lives in Sarasota. We decided not to cook this year for Easter and go out to eat, so we chose Olive Garden before he had to go to work overnight that night. They were, of course, busy, but we didn't have too much of a wait, maybe 20 minutes, as they took your number once greeted at the door for seating purposes. I used to remember getting our names called out, or they had the pagers that went off to let you know your table is ready back then. Nowadays, I guess everyone has a cell phone and uses your phone number to be seated now once the text went through. Anyhow, we asked to see if we could wait at the bar to at least order our drinks and was lucky to be served in a timely manner as busy as they were for Easter. Once seated when text came through, we sat a table near the bar and didn't have to move far. We got to keep the same waitress who was quick and new what she was doing. Once the order went through, the manager came out to some of the tables to explain the Meat Lasagna, which my other ordered was not ready yet and apologized for the delay and will comp our desserts for us. I ordered the Chicken Marcella Fettuccine, which was very rich and filled with lovely portions of mushrooms. Once we had our desserts ordered, we decided to take to go since we both were full, especially since we had the salad and breadsticks to start off. We always love coming to this location in Sarasota, Florida, so we will definitely be back. And they gave us our mints on the way out...those are always refreshing after dinner. I just wish our kind waitress at the bar could have gotten more help on a busy holiday weekend for a Sunday. Like she said, we all had some good entertainment that night, a...

I am not one to go leaving reviews, but this experience must be shared. I visited Olive Garden with my mom and son today at opening, 11am. Our drinks didn’t come before or with our salad which was fine. When the salad came we realized there was a hair in it as we distributed across the table. We asked for a new salad. No apologies on the hair. Moved on. The waitress kept picking my sons sippy cup by the mouth of the cup instead if the body which was gross in itself, but I didn’t say anything. When my sons macaroni kids meal came, it arrived with French fries instead of broccoli. Eventually the manager brought us the broccoli and told us to to be careful it was fresh out of the microwave so it was hot. The service was already bad at this point, but continued to get worse. As we’re checking out on the tablet provided at the table and also finishing our meal, I find TWO more hairs in his kids meal macaroni. These hairs were deep inside the food. Not on top. The color of the hair was different from the waitress so obviously a kitchen issue. We flag down who we assume is the manager as she’s dressed differently (the same who brought the broccoli). We explain the 3 different hairs and that someone needs to be wearing a hair net in the kitchen. She then responds by asking, “have you paid?” To which we respond we already had, and it wasn’t about getting a free meal. We just wanted her to know how gross it was. She then stared at us for a few moments before walking away. She never once apologized. Never once said that’s awful, I’ll make sure that never happens again. Never asked how she could make it right for the future. I felt like I was in a twilight zone. Like somehow I was wrong for complaining. Just thought I would share. Check your food for hairs! Will...